John Lescroart - A Plague of Secrets

But Hardy hadn’t gotten too far inside before Hunt called out, “You might as well come out now. I think the jig’s up,” and Gina Roake-barefoot, wet hair, running shorts, blue Cal sweatshirt-appeared from the back rooms, holding up a hand in greeting, a sheepish smile on her face. “Yo,” she said.

“Yo yourself,” Hardy replied. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. If this isn’t a good time…”

“Half hour ago,” Gina said, no shilly-shallying around, “wouldn’t have been a good time. Now the timing’s fine.”

“You can still have those Jelly Bellies if you want,” Hunt said, “but I think I’m good for a beer if you’d rather go in that direction.”

“If you’re going to twist my arm,” Hardy said.

“I’m starting to think she might actually be crazy.” Hardy, with his beer, was sitting on one of the tan stressed-leather easy chairs in the den-lots of books and magazines, CDs and DVDs, on built-in white shelves and a large TV. “Now she wants us to go after the killer.”

“Us?” Hunt asked. “With our huge investigating team and unlimited resources?”

“That’s kind of what I told her,” Hardy said.

Gina, next to Hunt, said, “I thought she was factually guilty.”

“Didn’t she tell you she did it?” Hunt asked. “I thought I’d heard that.”

“Not in so many words, but she never really denied it, and then she’s been acting all along like if she’s convicted, she deserves it. Not exactly an overt confession, but…” Hardy sipped from his bottle. “Anyway, so today she tells me she wasn’t with Levon and Dylan on the robbery either. Though maybe it was another one.”

“Another robbery?” Gina asked. “A different one?”

“Again ambiguous, but apparently.”

“Well, then,” Gina asked, “what would they have been blackmailing her about?”

“I asked her that. She said God was testing her.”

That struck Hunt funny. “Not just her,” he said.

Hardy nodded. “Tell me about it. So then she tells me she can’t believe I think she did this stuff. I mean, here we are almost a half year into this, and suddenly not only don’t we have what she’s being blackmailed about anymore, or what we thought it was, but now she wants us to find who really did these guys.”

“She’s trying to play you,” Gina said.

“That’s what I thought too. Maybe still think. I don’t know. But what’s in it for her if she plays me? What? She proves I’m gullible? So what? How’s it help her?”

Hunt cleared his throat. “This may be the obvious answer, and I’m not a lawyer of course and maybe don’t see the nuances like you two do, but if he or she does exist, and you find whoever it is, doesn’t that get her off?”

Hardy was sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, and his shoulders sagged. “In other words,” he said, “what if she’s not playing me?”

Hunt shrugged. “It’s a thought.”

“Okay,” Gina said. “But why’d this just come up?”

“Didn’t you tell me Diz brought it up today at trial? The other dude. Maybe it’s the first time she actually thought about that option as something we could do.”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing, Wyatt,” Hardy said. “You know this whole evidence problem we’re dealing with anyway? Same holds true if there’s another suspect, even a guilty one, hanging out in the bushes. The thing I hate about this, because it’s true, is that Maya’s got not one, but two, great motives. She was at both places. And, I don’t know, if any of us were being blackmailed for ten years, we might have gotten pretty tired of it ourselves.”

“Definitely,” Gina said, “I would’ve cleaned their clocks a long time ago. And I wouldn’t have left any evidence either.”

“That’s my girl.” Hunt punched her gently on the leg. “Remind me to destroy those secret videos of us I’ve been taking.” Then, to Hardy, “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. If she’s telling me now, point blank, she didn’t do it, I’m still not sure if I need that to get her off. I just cannot see this evidence convicting her, not in this city.”

“Well”-Gina was going to add her two cents-“all other things being equal, Diz, I’d normally agree with you. But you’ve got the Kathy and Harlen connection…”

“There’s no evidence about them, either, and that’s-”

“Wishful thinking,” Gina said. “That is wishful thinking.”

“What is?”

“That you’re obviously thinking some evidence standard is going to apply, either to Maya in the trial or to Harlen and Kathy and Maya’s husband on all the forfeiture stuff. But, as you so eloquently noted in your opening today, this is not about evidence. And I’m not just talking the trial, I’m talking the whole megillah. Stier makes the case, even subversively, that the reason there’s no evidence is because Maya’s got friends in high places who have all the means and power to get rid of evidence, and guess what? She goes down. And them sitting there, the mayor, Harlen-nice show of confidence and all-but it’s not helping your client. And it sure as hell isn’t impressing Braun, who undoubtedly and maybe truthfully sees it as intimidation.”

“I love it when she gets all riled up,” Hunt said.

But Hardy wasn’t in the mood to laugh about it. “So your point is?”

“My point,” Gina said, “is if you’ve got any chance at all of finding at least a living, breathing human being to introduce as the famous other dude, I’d pull out all the stops trying to find him.”

“With no evidence?” Hardy asked. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Well, on that,” Hunt said, “I might have an idea.”

“ There’s nothingto be worried about,” Wayne Ticknor told his daughter Jansey.

With her bitten-to-the-quick index fingernail she picked at a little dried blob of ketchup on her kitchen table. The digital clock on the stove read 10:17. “That’s easy for you to say, Daddy. You’re not going to be testifying.”

“True. But they’ve already told you everything they were going to be asking you about, haven’t they? Coached you, even.”

“I know. But what if they don’t just stick to that?”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Maybe they want to get me on the weed too. I mean, they mentioned that enough. Wasn’t I living off the proceeds? Wasn’t I helping with the business?”

“I thought they guaranteed they wouldn’t. Wasn’t that part of the deal?”

“Well, it wasn’t actually a real deal. More like I was just made to understand that if I could help them, they’d help me.”

“By keeping you out of the dope side of it?”

“I guess. Yeah. I can’t really deny that I knew about it.” She pouted and blew out a breath. “Or the defense guy? What if once I’m up there he starts getting into stuff about me and Robert? I mean, if people know about that, it’s going to look like we got together pretty soon after Dylan. And then, if they find out it was before too…”

“How would anybody find that out?” her father asked.

“I don’t know.”

“And even if they did, then what?”

“Then they might start putting it together that Dylan was hitting me. So here’s a guy who’s hitting me that I’m also cheating on. You see what I’m saying? It wouldn’t look good.”

“Yeah, but, honey, listen. They knew that already and they didn’t charge you or Robert with anything, did they? They charged Maya Townshend. They got her gun.”

“Okay, but everybody knows Dylan just took that from the shop.”

“I don’t think the cops do know that, hon. And I don’t think I’d volunteer it.”